In Ecuador, CPJ highlights press freedom decline

The turning point in President
Rafael Correa's aggressive campaign against the private media, Ecuadoran
journalists say, came in July with the criminal defamation convictions of four managers
of the Guayaquil-based daily El Universo.
Bad went to worse when the paper's former opinion editor and three of its
executives were sentenced to jail and fined, along with their newspaper, a total
of $40 million over a piece that called the president a "dictator." Emilio
Palacio, who wrote the critical op-ed that infuriated Correa and motivated the
lawsuit, fled
the country last
week after saying that he is being persecuted and justice will not be served.

Concerns about the deterioration
of press freedom in Ecuador brought together reporters from television, radio,
and print media to cover Thursday's launch in Quito of CPJ's special
report, "Confrontation,
repression in Correa's Ecuador." César Ricaurte, executive director of the
local press group Fundamedios, which hosted the event at the Hilton, made a
brief introduction and presented José Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch´s Americas Division, and Diego Cornejo, executive director
of the Association of
Ecuadoran Editors, who were panelists and made comments on the situation in
Ecuador.

HRW's Vivanco talked
about the broad legal framework for free expression in the hemisphere,
emphasizing that laws that penalize offensive expressions directed at public
officials restrict the rights of freedom of expression and access to
information. Vivanco called the El
Universo ruling a legal absurdity that threatens freedom of expression in
Ecuador. Cornejo said freedom of expression guarantees have weakened since
Correa took office in 2007, and said that the government has made systematic
attacks against the press a state policy.

CPJ's
report received widespread coverage in local media. On today's cover, El Universo's headline said, "Committee that
protects journalists concerned about Ecuador," while the Quito-based El Comercio opened its political section
with the head, "Ecuador is one of the most restrictive countries for the
press." The daily Hoy published an interview with me on page
2, while the daily Expreso made CPJ's
recommendations the highlight of its story on
the report. Ecuavisa, Teleamazonas, and Canal Uno, and RTS sent crews to cover
the launch as did a number of radio stations.

State
media was absent. In fact, on the day CPJ released its report, a union of state
media representative held an alternative event. The Latin American Union of
News Agencies gathered representatives of state news agencies in Venezuela,
Argentina, Cuba, Paraguay, Bolivia, Mexico, Brazil, and Ecuador to discuss the perceived
need for government regulation of the private press, according to the
state-owned daily El Telégrafo. Journalists noted the timing
was no coincidence.

On
Wednesday, I took part in a panel organized by the Journalists' Forum, which debates
professional issues. Carlos Jijón, director of the news site La República and former news director of
Teleamazonas; Mónica Almedia, news editor for El Universo; Paúl Mena Erazo with the forum; and Fundamedios'
Ricaurte talked about press conditions under Correa. Filming the entire event
was a cameraman for state media who didn't identify himself. Such filming has
become a regular practice, according to Ecuadoran journalists, who say the
footage is occasionally used to accompany presidential addresses discrediting
critical journalists.

While
the government did not respond directly to CPJ's report (and did not respond to
requests for comment when CPJ was preparing the report), Correa said in a radio
interview today that "it is ridiculous to state that there is no freedom of
expression in Ecuador," according to a story by the official
news agency Andes. The agency referred to the CPJ report and criticism by HRW.
Our report actually concluded that the administration's practices were
threatening the free expression rights of its citizens. And that,
unfortunately, is not so ridiculous.

(Reporting from Quito)

CPJ Senior Americas Program Coordinator Carlos Lauría, a native of Buenos Aires, is a widely published journalist who has written extensively for Noticias, the leading Spanish-language newsmagazine.
Follow him on Facebook @ CPJ en Español.

Comments

Palacio was not convicted for calling Correa a "dictator" but for falsely accusing him of a (grave) crime and then refusing to retract the statement. It is very telling that you have to misrepresent the judicial case in your report. However, judging from the dubious quality of your 'investigation', I can fully understand why you would want to be able to libel with impunity...

@martin. The CPJ report fully describes the column, which has to do with the president's conduct in office. So who's misrepresenting what? A free society allows its citizens to question its leaders. The president wants to be above questioning. Speaking of missrepresenting, who's saying libel should be with impunity? Libel in free states is civil -- you prove a case you win money. Correa is doing something different. He uses government resources to try to imprison people who question him.